1 00:00:02,460 --> 00:00:09,045 There's one more kind of language that we need to discuss because it's also used to 2 00:00:09,045 --> 00:00:13,983 stop the skeptical regress. Much like assuring and guarding and 3 00:00:13,983 --> 00:00:17,119 discounting. This language is evaluative. 4 00:00:17,119 --> 00:00:23,155 Just imagine that a politician says, you ought to support my health care plan 5 00:00:23,155 --> 00:00:28,770 because it would be good for the country. What is the word good? 6 00:00:28,770 --> 00:00:32,465 Doing here. Now some philosophers are going to tell 7 00:00:32,465 --> 00:00:38,406 you that the word good is just a way of expressing your emotions or maybe telling 8 00:00:38,406 --> 00:00:42,391 you what to do. So the politician is saying, yeah for my 9 00:00:42,391 --> 00:00:47,970 healthcare plan or telling you in an imperative form, you ought ta support my 10 00:00:47,970 --> 00:00:52,100 healthcare plan, but that can't really be the whole story. 11 00:00:52,100 --> 00:00:58,128 Because when someone says, yay, Duke, like I do when I cheer for the Duke team. 12 00:00:58,128 --> 00:01:02,093 First of all, I'm not saying that the team is good. 13 00:01:02,093 --> 00:01:07,328 I might cheer for the Duke team even when I know they're not good. 14 00:01:07,328 --> 00:01:11,120 And secondly, you can't ask me why, if I go yeah Duke. 15 00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:15,478 It doesn't make any sense if you turn to me and say but why? 16 00:01:15,478 --> 00:01:18,311 Why yeah, Duke? It doesn't make any sense. 17 00:01:18,311 --> 00:01:23,541 So merely to express your emotions with something like yeah, Duke is very 18 00:01:23,541 --> 00:01:29,062 different from saying Duke has a good team and saying yeah, for my healthcare 19 00:01:29,062 --> 00:01:34,583 plan is very different from saying that the healthcare plan is good for the 20 00:01:34,583 --> 00:01:38,070 country. Similarly, if I say I don't like fish, so 21 00:01:38,070 --> 00:01:43,534 we shouldn't have fish for dinner. Well, I don't really owe you a reason. 22 00:01:43,534 --> 00:01:47,743 I can just say, I just don't like the taste of fish,. 23 00:01:47,743 --> 00:01:50,010 end of story. Leave me alone. 24 00:01:50,010 --> 00:01:54,728 I don't know your reason for why I don't like fish. 25 00:01:54,728 --> 00:02:01,574 I just don't but if I say, it's immoral to eat fish. It's wrong to eat fish. 26 00:02:01,574 --> 00:02:05,974 You ought not to eat fish, it's a very different story. 27 00:02:05,974 --> 00:02:10,531 Now I owe you a reason. If I say it's immoral to eat fish, I need 28 00:02:10,531 --> 00:02:15,730 to say what's immoral about it? I need to point to some feature of eating 29 00:02:15,730 --> 00:02:20,644 fish that makes it immoral. I can't just use that evaluative language 30 00:02:20,644 --> 00:02:23,541 without some kind of reason to back it up. 31 00:02:23,541 --> 00:02:27,613 That would be illegitimate. So, what that shows is that merely 32 00:02:27,613 --> 00:02:33,154 expressing preferences is very different from making an evaluation and saying that 33 00:02:33,154 --> 00:02:37,360 something is good or bad or right or wrong, or immoral or moral. 34 00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:41,720 And one way to capture this feature evaluative language is to interpret a 35 00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:45,904 word like good as, meet the standards, and bad as, violates the standards. 36 00:02:45,904 --> 00:02:50,147 Notice it's very vague, 'cause it doesn't tell you what the standards are. 37 00:02:50,147 --> 00:02:53,683 And those standards will change from one context to another. 38 00:02:53,683 --> 00:02:58,220 If you're talking about a good painting, the standards of a good painting are 39 00:02:58,220 --> 00:03:01,933 different from when you're talking about, say, a good investment. 40 00:03:01,933 --> 00:03:06,235 Where the standards are going to be completely different from the aesthetic 41 00:03:06,235 --> 00:03:09,256 case. So if we interpret good as, meets the 42 00:03:09,256 --> 00:03:14,563 standards, and we say my healthcare program is good for the country, then 43 00:03:14,563 --> 00:03:20,386 that means it meets the standards for what will make the country function, in a 44 00:03:20,386 --> 00:03:23,702 certain way. Whereas, if we say eating fish is 45 00:03:23,702 --> 00:03:29,158 immoral, what we're saying is that eating fish violates a certain kind of standard. 46 00:03:29,158 --> 00:03:31,913 And more specifically, it's a moral standard. 47 00:03:31,913 --> 00:03:36,421 That's why we use the word immoral. So we can interpret this language in 48 00:03:36,421 --> 00:03:41,492 terms of meat eater violating standards, and then to get the reason why it's good 49 00:03:41,492 --> 00:03:44,310 or bad or right or wrong or moral or immoral. 50 00:03:44,310 --> 00:03:50,740 We can cite the standard and apply it to the case in order to give a reason for 51 00:03:50,740 --> 00:03:55,380 why the evaluation holds. But now here's the trick, 52 00:03:55,380 --> 00:03:58,544 when we call it good we don't say what the standards are. 53 00:03:58,544 --> 00:04:02,542 We leave that up to the context to specify what kind of standards we're 54 00:04:02,542 --> 00:04:06,000 talking about. So, it's kind of like assuring, when you 55 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:10,676 say, I assure you, and you might cite some authority or tell them that you do 56 00:04:10,676 --> 00:04:14,369 have some reason and you don't tell them what the reason is. 57 00:04:14,369 --> 00:04:18,984 When you call it good, you say it does meet the standards, but you don't say 58 00:04:18,984 --> 00:04:22,861 what the standards are. So by, alluding to the standards without 59 00:04:22,861 --> 00:04:27,240 actually laying them out. You have made your claim a little more 60 00:04:27,240 --> 00:04:30,482 defensible. Because if you laid out the standards, 61 00:04:30,482 --> 00:04:35,246 they might be questionable and your audience would know exactly what to 62 00:04:35,246 --> 00:04:38,224 questions and what to deny, and how to object. 63 00:04:38,224 --> 00:04:43,517 But if you simply say it's good, and all you're saying is, it meets the standards. 64 00:04:43,517 --> 00:04:48,215 Then you've avoided an objection, and made your premise more defensible. 65 00:04:48,215 --> 00:04:53,243 And that's how this type of evaluative language might help to stave off the 66 00:04:53,243 --> 00:04:56,949 skeptical regress. And here's another way evaluation can 67 00:04:56,949 --> 00:05:00,082 help. We don't always have to agree about what 68 00:05:00,082 --> 00:05:03,365 the standards are. Suppose we're driving down the road and I 69 00:05:03,365 --> 00:05:05,553 say, you know, we ought to turn left here. 70 00:05:05,553 --> 00:05:07,960 And you say, yeah, we ought to turn left here. 71 00:05:07,960 --> 00:05:12,172 Well, I might think that we ought to turn left here because that's going to be a 72 00:05:12,172 --> 00:05:16,549 quicker way to get to our destination. But you might think that we ought to turn 73 00:05:16,549 --> 00:05:20,652 left here because that's going to be a more beautiful view, and you'll be able 74 00:05:20,652 --> 00:05:24,740 to look out on the hills. But we can agree that we ought to turn 75 00:05:24,740 --> 00:05:27,766 left here. Because we both agree that turning left 76 00:05:27,766 --> 00:05:31,397 meets the standards. Even though my standards are efficiency, 77 00:05:31,397 --> 00:05:35,693 and getting there quickly and your standards are aesthetic, and getting 78 00:05:35,693 --> 00:05:39,203 beautiful views. So if you can get more people to agree to 79 00:05:39,203 --> 00:05:43,682 your premises, simply by saying, this health care plan will be good for the 80 00:05:43,682 --> 00:05:46,950 country, without saying exactly how it's going to be good. 81 00:05:46,950 --> 00:05:52,472 Then you've avoided people disputing your objections because they can agree to it, 82 00:05:52,472 --> 00:05:57,657 since they can use their own standards to determine whether it's good or not. 83 00:05:57,657 --> 00:06:01,900 And that can be yet another way to avoid the skeptical regress. 84 00:06:01,900 --> 00:06:06,444 Notice, that evaluation can occur at a lot of different levels. 85 00:06:06,444 --> 00:06:12,307 We have some words that are very abstract like, good and bad, and ought and ought 86 00:06:12,307 --> 00:06:17,355 not, should, should not, right, wrong. And those words can be used in a lot of 87 00:06:17,355 --> 00:06:21,061 different contexts. You can have the wrong investment or a 88 00:06:21,061 --> 00:06:24,640 good investment or an investment that you ought to make. 89 00:06:24,640 --> 00:06:31,095 But you can also drive on the right path, or a bad path, or a way that you ought 90 00:06:31,095 --> 00:06:34,609 not to go. And so, you can have navigational 91 00:06:34,609 --> 00:06:41,065 standards, and economic standards, but they can all be expressed by these really 92 00:06:41,065 --> 00:06:47,276 general, and abstract, evaluative words like, good and bad, and right and wrong, 93 00:06:47,276 --> 00:06:52,180 and ought and ought not, and should and should not, and so on. 94 00:06:52,180 --> 00:06:56,096 But other evaluative words are much more specific. 95 00:06:56,096 --> 00:07:00,640 Now, for example you can call a painting beautiful or ugly. 96 00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:04,242 But you don't call fertilizer beautiful or ugly. 97 00:07:04,242 --> 00:07:08,294 You would never say that a stock is beautiful or ugly. 98 00:07:08,294 --> 00:07:13,022 They're just not the kind of thing to be evaluated in that way. 99 00:07:13,022 --> 00:07:16,400 So an evaluative word like beautiful or ugly. 100 00:07:16,400 --> 00:07:20,141 Is more specific. It only applies to a small range of 101 00:07:20,141 --> 00:07:23,459 things. Whereas other words apply, like good and 102 00:07:23,459 --> 00:07:28,189 bad, apply to almost anything. Here's another example, cruel or brave. 103 00:07:28,189 --> 00:07:32,989 A person can be cruel or brave. But you can't say that a painting is 104 00:07:32,989 --> 00:07:36,025 cruel or brave or a desk is cruel or brave. 105 00:07:36,025 --> 00:07:40,540 Or a chair is cruel or brave. A chair might be comfortable. 106 00:07:40,540 --> 00:07:45,320 But, a painting's not comfortable. And a soldier's not comfortable. 107 00:07:45,320 --> 00:07:49,438 Soldiers are brave or not, chairs are comfortable or not. 108 00:07:49,438 --> 00:07:54,733 But chairs are not brave or not, and soldiers are not comfortable or not. 109 00:07:54,733 --> 00:08:00,175 So these evaluative words, like brave or cowardly, and beautiful or ugly, or 110 00:08:00,175 --> 00:08:06,058 comfortable or uncomfortable apply only to limited ranges of things rather than 111 00:08:06,058 --> 00:08:10,278 to, just about anything. So we have very general or abstract 112 00:08:10,278 --> 00:08:14,141 evaluative words. And we have more specific or concrete 113 00:08:14,141 --> 00:08:18,004 evaluative words. And, of course, which ones are specific 114 00:08:18,004 --> 00:08:22,007 or concrete will vary. Some are more concrete than others. 115 00:08:22,007 --> 00:08:27,485 It's not an absolute dichotomy but some words that are evaluative really will 116 00:08:27,485 --> 00:08:33,104 apply to almost anything and other words apply to a more limited class and they 117 00:08:33,104 --> 00:08:37,810 vary on how limited that class of things that they apply to will be. 118 00:08:37,810 --> 00:08:41,431 So, you might ask, why are all these words evaluative words? 119 00:08:41,431 --> 00:08:46,051 Well think about it, if you want to explain a more limited evaluative word 120 00:08:46,051 --> 00:08:49,110 like beautiful, you want to explain what it means. 121 00:08:49,110 --> 00:08:52,414 You need to. Defined it in terms of the more general 122 00:08:52,414 --> 00:08:55,798 words like good. If you want to say it's beautiful, that 123 00:08:55,798 --> 00:08:59,437 kind of means looks good. And no, that's not quite right, but 124 00:08:59,437 --> 00:09:04,226 basically when you want to define the word beautiful, you need to cite one of 125 00:09:04,226 --> 00:09:09,207 the more general words, good, and then cite the specific way in which it's good, 126 00:09:09,207 --> 00:09:13,396 namely the way it looks. And when you want to say an economic word 127 00:09:13,396 --> 00:09:16,182 like bargain. Bargain means a good price. 128 00:09:16,182 --> 00:09:20,312 It sells for a good price. And a good price is a low price. 129 00:09:20,312 --> 00:09:25,796 So, when you define what a bargain is, you need to cite the word good in order 130 00:09:25,796 --> 00:09:29,570 to define bargain. So the relation between these very 131 00:09:29,570 --> 00:09:32,490 general. Evaluative words and the more specific 132 00:09:32,490 --> 00:09:37,250 evaluative words that makes them all evaluative is that you need to define the 133 00:09:37,250 --> 00:09:40,866 specific evaluative words in terms of the more general ones. 134 00:09:40,866 --> 00:09:45,386 So it all comes down to what makes something evaluative is it's connection 135 00:09:45,386 --> 00:09:50,267 to what's good or bad, or right or wrong, or what ought or ought not to be done, or 136 00:09:50,267 --> 00:09:54,847 should or shouldn't be done, and so on. Now the trickiest cases of evaluative 137 00:09:54,847 --> 00:09:58,266 words are. Words that are contextually evaluative. 138 00:09:58,266 --> 00:10:03,609 They don't actually get defined by good or bad or right or wrong, as their 139 00:10:03,609 --> 00:10:07,581 general meaning. But they do suggest an evaluation in a 140 00:10:07,581 --> 00:10:11,625 particular context. Let me give you an example of what I 141 00:10:11,625 --> 00:10:15,019 mean. A conservative politician might criticize 142 00:10:15,019 --> 00:10:21,290 her opponent by saying. Well his policies are way too liberal. 143 00:10:21,290 --> 00:10:25,005 Now, by calling them liberal, is that a criticism? 144 00:10:25,005 --> 00:10:30,888 Well, she intends it as a criticism. But, does the word liberal mean that it's 145 00:10:30,888 --> 00:10:33,752 bad? Not really, if you think about it. 146 00:10:33,752 --> 00:10:38,164 Because the opponent might say, I'm proud to be a liberal. 147 00:10:38,164 --> 00:10:41,106 Being liberal's good. Yes, it's liberal. 148 00:10:41,106 --> 00:10:43,041 So what? Yes, it's liberal. 149 00:10:43,041 --> 00:10:47,995 Nothing wrong with that. The word liberal by itself doesn't mean 150 00:10:47,995 --> 00:10:52,252 that it's bad. Even though the conservative thinks that 151 00:10:52,252 --> 00:10:57,645 things that are liberal are bad. So that word liberal is not evaluative in 152 00:10:57,645 --> 00:11:01,463 the strict sense. Because it doesn't get defined by the 153 00:11:01,463 --> 00:11:05,628 words good or bad, or right or wrong, or should or should not. 154 00:11:05,628 --> 00:11:10,973 It's only evaluative in the context. It suggests an evaluation because of the 155 00:11:10,973 --> 00:11:15,763 assumptions of the speaker. But it doesn't in and of itself mean that 156 00:11:15,763 --> 00:11:21,361 anything is bad, or good for that matter. Because of this difference we will call 157 00:11:21,361 --> 00:11:26,086 language evaluative only when it's openly and literally evaluative. 158 00:11:26,086 --> 00:11:31,799 So that it gets defined in terms of words like good or bad, or right or wrong and 159 00:11:31,799 --> 00:11:34,973 not when it's merely contextually evaluative. 160 00:11:34,973 --> 00:11:40,052 That is, in the context, given the assumptions of the speaker, this person 161 00:11:40,052 --> 00:11:45,624 means to be suggesting an evaluation. If they're not openly saying this is good 162 00:11:45,624 --> 00:11:50,337 or bad or right or wrong then. They're not really using what language 163 00:11:50,337 --> 00:11:54,533 that we will call evaluative. But there were a couple of tricky 164 00:11:54,533 --> 00:11:57,263 examples that are worth bringing up. Okay? 165 00:11:57,263 --> 00:12:02,791 You might think that if you take two good things and put 'em together it gets even 166 00:12:02,791 --> 00:12:05,854 better. And when you add a bad thing to a good 167 00:12:05,854 --> 00:12:10,183 thing it makes it worse. At least that's the way it usually works. 168 00:12:10,183 --> 00:12:14,845 But notice that when you say something's good that suggests it's good. 169 00:12:14,845 --> 00:12:20,060 But when you say, eh, it's pretty good. Then you just added pretty, which is 170 00:12:20,060 --> 00:12:25,103 something good to the word good. But, pretty good, it's not really any 171 00:12:25,103 --> 00:12:28,160 better than, good. It might even be worse. 172 00:12:28,160 --> 00:12:31,291 But then you can add a negative word in the middle. 173 00:12:31,291 --> 00:12:33,194 Yeah. That was pretty darn good. 174 00:12:33,194 --> 00:12:37,307 Well, that means it's very good. So, you've actually taken a negative 175 00:12:37,307 --> 00:12:41,789 word, darn, and put it in the middle of two positive words, pretty and good. 176 00:12:41,789 --> 00:12:46,578 And made something that means very good. So, you really have to think carefully 177 00:12:46,578 --> 00:12:51,428 about exactly what the language means. It's not going to be a simple formula of 178 00:12:51,428 --> 00:12:56,094 adding and subtracting goods and bads to figure out whether the language is 179 00:12:56,094 --> 00:12:59,103 evaluative. Now, another word that's surprising is 180 00:12:59,103 --> 00:13:04,033 the word to. I like spicy food so, when I say this 181 00:13:04,033 --> 00:13:06,497 food is spicy. That's good. 182 00:13:06,497 --> 00:13:10,810 Or at least it's neutral. To say it's spicy to me means I'm 183 00:13:10,810 --> 00:13:15,343 probably going to like it. But notice that if we just add that 184 00:13:15,343 --> 00:13:20,900 little word too, if I were to say this food is too spicy, that means it's bad. 185 00:13:20,900 --> 00:13:26,172 The little word too takes a positive evaluation, or sometimes just something 186 00:13:26,172 --> 00:13:31,098 that's neutral, and makes it bad. So the word too is actually a negative 187 00:13:31,098 --> 00:13:36,718 evaluative word because it turns what was neutral or positive into something bad. 188 00:13:36,718 --> 00:13:40,187 It moves it in that negative evaluative direction. 189 00:13:40,187 --> 00:13:45,252 So it's a negative evaluative word. So is there anything wrong with using 190 00:13:45,252 --> 00:13:46,822 evaluative language? No. 191 00:13:46,822 --> 00:13:51,204 Some people seem to think that you shouldn't evaluate at all, you should 192 00:13:51,204 --> 00:13:54,248 just describe. But, they're just kidding themselves. 193 00:13:54,248 --> 00:13:59,117 Try going through life without deciding what's good or bad, or right or wrong, or 194 00:13:59,117 --> 00:14:03,621 what you ought or ought not to do. You can't really live your life without 195 00:14:03,621 --> 00:14:08,122 making evaluations at some point. So it's a mistake to think that 196 00:14:08,122 --> 00:14:13,184 evaluation is always bad. Of course, when you do evaluate, it's not 197 00:14:13,184 --> 00:14:16,433 like saying yea Duke. You have to give a reason. 198 00:14:16,433 --> 00:14:20,534 So you should think about the standards that you're applying and why they apply 199 00:14:20,534 --> 00:14:22,841 to this case. That's going to be your reason for 200 00:14:22,841 --> 00:14:26,584 evaluating the thing as good or bad. Now it's often going to be hard to come 201 00:14:26,584 --> 00:14:29,096 up with the exact standards that you're applying. 202 00:14:29,096 --> 00:14:33,403 Because people tend to think of things as good or bad without getting very specific 203 00:14:33,403 --> 00:14:37,046 about what the standards are. So you're not always going to be able to 204 00:14:37,046 --> 00:14:41,416 tell people what your standards are. And when you ask them, they're not always 205 00:14:41,416 --> 00:14:44,254 going to be able to specify what their standards are. 206 00:14:44,254 --> 00:14:47,829 But it's still going to be a useful exercise, whenever you make an 207 00:14:47,829 --> 00:14:52,256 evaluation, to think about why you think this thing is good or bad or right or 208 00:14:52,256 --> 00:14:54,583 wrong. What are the standards that you're 209 00:14:54,583 --> 00:14:57,364 applying? And when somebody disagrees with you, to 210 00:14:57,364 --> 00:15:01,450 ask about what their standards are, so that you can understand where the 211 00:15:01,450 --> 00:15:05,927 disagreement is coming from. Although evaluation can be very useful 212 00:15:05,927 --> 00:15:11,924 and legitimate, it can also be dangerous. Because some people use evaluative terms 213 00:15:11,924 --> 00:15:14,960 without reasons. Let's call that slanting. 214 00:15:14,960 --> 00:15:21,353 You slant when you use an evaluative word and don't give any justification for that 215 00:15:21,353 --> 00:15:25,538 use of the word. So you might call somebody an idiot or 216 00:15:25,538 --> 00:15:31,018 queer, and you're using an evaluative word, or at least you take it to be 217 00:15:31,018 --> 00:15:35,509 negatively evaluative. And you haven't given any reason why 218 00:15:35,509 --> 00:15:40,380 there's anything wrong with what you're calling that nasty word. 219 00:15:40,380 --> 00:15:43,692 Now, that's slanting if you don't have any reason. 220 00:15:43,692 --> 00:15:47,681 And that can be terribly illegitimate. When do people do it? 221 00:15:47,681 --> 00:15:51,602 Well, they typically do it when they don't have any reason. 222 00:15:51,602 --> 00:15:56,875 If you don't have any reason for your evaluation, you just use some nasty name, 223 00:15:56,875 --> 00:16:00,715 like you idiot. And, so when people start using language 224 00:16:00,715 --> 00:16:06,153 like that, when they start slanting, then that's a good indication to you as a 225 00:16:06,153 --> 00:16:11,097 critic that that's the point at which their argument is probably weak. 226 00:16:11,097 --> 00:16:16,677 They're using that kind of language to paper over cracks, as I put it before, in 227 00:16:16,677 --> 00:16:20,491 their argument so as to hide what's the real weakness. 228 00:16:20,491 --> 00:16:25,647 So we can use evaluative language in arguments, and how it gets placed at 229 00:16:25,647 --> 00:16:30,661 certain points to signal where the weaknesses and the strengths in the 230 00:16:30,661 --> 00:16:35,069 argument are. So now, what we've got is, we've got 231 00:16:35,069 --> 00:16:42,546 argument markers, we've got assuring terms, guarding terms, discounting terms, 232 00:16:42,546 --> 00:16:47,224 evaluative language. And in the next few lectures, we're going 233 00:16:47,224 --> 00:16:52,937 to look at a general technique that looks at all those different types of language 234 00:16:52,937 --> 00:16:58,251 and uses those different categories to analyze some real passages that we found 235 00:16:58,251 --> 00:17:01,240 in newspapers. But before that, let's do a few 236 00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:05,160 exercises, just to make sure that you understand evaluation.